


Weather Appropriate Activities

by arsenicarcher (Arsenic)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Blizzards & Snowstorms, Multi, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/arsenicarcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May, Ward and Hill have 12 hours until extraction, no safe house, and some very wintery weather to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weather Appropriate Activities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [51stCenturyFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/51stCenturyFox/gifts).



> Foxy asked for something involving these characters (and Skye, preferably, but I failed on that one) bring in a tropey situation, like stuck-in-the-cold, huddling-for-warmth. 
> 
> You probably shouldn't look for a lot of plot coherence here. Like WHY they would be in this situation, or how this much SHIELD!fail makes sense. If you find yourself questioning something, think: because fanfic.
> 
> Mwah, Foxy, hope you get a kick out of this.

_Fuck_ , Melinda thought, just as Maria said, "You've _got_ to be kidding me."

Even Ward looked somewhat daunted by the situation, and although Melinda could read the kid like a Dick and Jane book, he wasn't usually this emotive during missions. There was no safe house. Oh, there were the remains of what might once have been a safe house, but other than rotting wood and a few broken glass panes lying about, there was nothing to indicate that this might have once provided shelter.

Melinda looked at Maria. Maria promised slow death to the dickhead who'd been on intel for this one with a single responding glance. That was enough for Melinda. For now, they needed to find somewhere to stay. The temperature was dropping and they were already experiencing negative degrees in wind chill. Plus, Melinda wasn't counting on the current lack of precipitation maintaining itself.

They couldn't split up. Their comms were working just fine—Maria was already chewing someone's ass over them—but if a storm rolled in, like Melinda was expecting, they couldn't depend on them at long range. Plus, the sun was setting and it would be a really good way to get at least one of them killed, each of them being on their own. So the split-up-and-search approach was out.

Maria said, "Extraction in twelve hours. They can't get a ship in the airspace. There's a storm east of us, heading our way."

Melinda was really not entranced by how often she was right about things. "Let's do our best to stay ahead of it. Be looking for a place to camp."

"HQ tells me there are some caves directly northwest of us. If we can stay going in the correct direction."

Ward shrugged. "Better than nothing."

He started off, clearly intent on being at the front if anything happened. Maria rolled her eyes. Melinda had almost gotten used to the intense flash of annoyance mixed with reluctant fondness she got when dealing with Ward in any capacity. She smirked at Maria. Maria laughed a bit, then began to follow Ward, leaving Melinda at the rear.

*

They found the caves. It was a near thing. By the time they reached them the storm was interfering pretty badly with their directional senses, not to mention blowing what felt like 55mph winds, which were enough to make even Melinda's stance less than steady.

Ward hadn't ducked out of the path of a kamikaze tree limb and had some serious bruising and a cut along his neck to show for it. He was lucky it hadn't concussed him. They were lucky. 

In the dark, Melinda had missed a dip in the terrain and strained her ankle. It was nothing she couldn't handle, hell, with as cold as it was, it would probably be fine by the time SHIELD got to them, but minor injuries were always annoying. They reminded her of a loudly buzzing fly, the kind that was too fast to be caught.

The first cave they found was situated so that the storm was simply blustering its way on in, and the second wasn't much better. The third, however, was nestled a bit lower than the others, which helped with shelter. It was still colder than the ninth circle inside, but it had the benefit of blocking both the wind and snowy-ice mixture that had all of them sporting miniscule scrapes where their skin had been exposed.

Maria was already pulling out every warming supply in her pack. Melinda was sardonically pleased that at least everything up until now had gone all right and their supplies were largely intact. That wasn't so much the norm for SHIELD. She sometimes wondered if other agencies had this kind of shit happen. She suppressed a snort. It probably happened _more_ with them.

Maria's lips were blue and she actually almost dropped the Sterno while setting it up. Melinda took it from her. She wasn't much warmer, but Maria tended toward cold even in warm environments. Melinda was pretty sure she originally came from SoCal. Melinda was a child of Michigan winters. Not much got to her. She said, "Get out of those clothes."

She turned to Ward. "You too, princess."

"I'm—"

"It wasn't a request, agent," Maria said. "You haven't got anything we haven't seen before, and if you do, well, SHIELD."

Melinda had seen it a little more literally than Maria, but the premise held. Ward began unzipping his overcoat. He paused and asked Maria, "What happens if I get you with my quills?"

There was a moment of silence where Melinda was trying to figure out what the hell that meant and Maria was just blinking at him. Then Maria said, "Holy shit, Agent Porcupine just made a joke."

Melinda bit her lips against a grin. Maria had always been able to make her smile. It was one of the reasons Melinda tried so hard to stay away from her. Maria nodded slowly. "And The Cavalry just smiled. We're going to die here, keeping these secrets, aren't we?"

Ward was halfway to nude when he froze at her nickname. She just continued opening as many of the Sternos as they had combined. Maria always said it without awe or fear. It helped. She still didn't like it, but telling Maria not to do something was as good as telling Phil he _couldn't_ do something. It always ended in tears. She unzipped her coat as Maria pulled one of the emergency blankets around herself. Ward was doing the same. 

Having finished with the fires, Melinda fished through the supplies to find rubbing alcohol and bandages. She made quick work of the gash on Ward's neck, then stripped as quickly as possible, given that everything was wet and frozen. She held her hand out for the third blanket. No sooner had she stepped toward him, Ward was curling himself around her. Maria had spread her sleeping bag out so that the three of them could sit atop it. She glanced at them and if Melinda hadn't known her so damn well she would have missed the moment Maria connected the dots.

Melinda just freed herself from Ward and went to where Maria was sitting, curling into her. If Ward wanted to warm her, he was going to warm both of them. Maria was shit at accepting help as a general rule, but she was surprisingly good about shifting to make it easier for both of them. When they'd fit against each other in a way that would keep them all as warm as possible, Maria said, "So I'm kind of a third wheel, here?"

And because she knew that tone, that sharp-edged humor that kept Maria safe, Melinda leaned in and kissed her. "Or we could do it this way."

Maria pulled away, taking a moment to open her eyes and look over her shoulder at Ward. "What about you, Porcupine? Because I'm your superior officer, and I really prefer non-coerced sex."

Ward's eyes were dark and just a little bigger than usual. Melinda knew a lot of what made him tick, and women who could hold him down while they rode him hard and put him away wet were probably at the top of the list. Ward was very likely trying to sort if this was a dream or not. He swallowed and said, "No, um. No coercion."

Maria stared at him for a moment and asked, "But?"

Ward tried to keep eye contact but failed in the end. Melinda would have laughed if that was a thing she did. "But he'd really like it if you were his commanding officer. During."

Maria considered that for a moment and then smiled, a slow curl of her lips. She asked, without any innuendo, just actual boundary setting, "Like to prove how good you are following orders?"

Ward's gaze flickered to Melinda for a moment, and then back down again. "Yes, ma'am."

Maria ran a finger over his cheekbone and said, "Oh baby. The things we could do to you if hypothermia weren't an issue and there wasn't a helo coming for us in about seven hours."

Melinda thought a bed would be nice, too. And she wouldn't say no to some toys. Ah well, there was always later. As one of the only SHIELD agents aware of Phil's survival, Maria served as liaison to the team. Ward said softly, "I could be, um, not-coerced again later?"

Melinda was never sure how she felt about Ward's shy-unsure thing, but she loved his eager to please thing. Evidently it worked for Maria, though, because she brought his face up by kissing along his lips and said, "Well then. Consider this a warm up."


End file.
